


Horse caves

by laughingpineapple



Category: Shadow of the Colossus
Genre: Apprenticeship, Gen, Horses, Missing Scene, POV Animal, Vague Eldritch Undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27957287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: Dream of wild horses, dream of old horses, in the vast green fields, past a row of guiding graves.
Relationships: Agro & Phaedra
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2020





	Horse caves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheMangosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMangosity/gifts).



As soon as they crossed the gates to that land, Agro knew that they were trespassers and prey. It was an absolute, primal certainty that every grain of sand, every leaf, every gust of wind under the tall bridge was filled with the drive to hunt them down. Survival instincts did not lie. Even the carved stones carried a tense discordant tune of captivity. Ghosts lay in wait past every corner, calling in whispers, laying their traps, breaking them in softly, like foals, binding their steps with loose ropes ready to tighten toward an invisible center.

Their ties were still loose in the early days. When Wander climbed out of sight, or slept watched by shadows, Agro ran and ran. This land had a lust for blood, but when Agro’s frayed nerves eventually numbed down to that new normal, there was no denying that it was pleasant as well, and generous. Pastures abounded. The weather seemed to know no harshness, as if it lay suspended in its own spell, there, at the end of the world.

One day, past a row of guiding graves, in the vast green fields, Agro found a friend.

The other horse was tall and made of stone. It sat and looked after the fields, it seemed. Agro trotted up to it, breathed its scent. The other watched.

It rose, at last, trembling on its spindly stone legs. Agro stared at its empty rib cage, unending hunger – the essence of all horses. Agro understood. It walked to the center of the fields, begging to be followed, offering a promise of secrets to be shared. They stood next to a mound, with stairs that led deep into the earth, where the secrets lay. Secrets are hidden under shelters of earth and stone, this much was understood by all animals born and raised on the prairies. The invitation was clear. But Agro could not take that journey, no matter how the other prodded, fuming dark breath into the entrance with its stone nostrils: the tunnels were meant for smaller horses, older horses of long-past ages with shorter legs and firmer hooves. The other understood in turn, at last, and let Agro go.

They met again after a soft rain, on the greenest grass there ever was on earth. The other was waiting in the middle of the mounds, surrounded by mist, its cage a mound of its own now. The same invitation still filled the air, at once an offer of friendship and a request to share a fading dream which was too heavy to guard for one horse alone. Agro neighed in a tentative agreement, head tall, attentive ears, and circled around the other, closer and closer, to reach a place to rest inside the other’s chest, surrounded by stone ribs. In that empty space, that hunger no pasture could fill, Agro dreamt of old herds crossing the forests, thick manes, short dark legs, not dark yet, horses as young as the world and as pale as bark, wilderness stretching through generations. The other had never known the freedom of the woods, but ruminated on such old memories, vanished from the world anywhere but in secret places, hidden underneath. Perhaps it came with being made of stone, layers and layers of history kept inside.

They dreamt together until this wilderness filled them both.

It lingered, afterwards, this memory of wilderness, from hoof to ear. Hidden under Agro’s skin now.

But Agro was no wild horse. When Wander followed the path of the guiding graves and of the green fields, Agro carried him and fought with him. There was no choice. Never had been.

Of that friend, not even the statue remained. Agro’s instincts ached as they stood, boy and horse, in front of the rubble under the shrine’s vault: a reminder that they all were prey and there were no more wild horses in the land, no more old horses, and the world was dimmed.

For a time.

After all was done, Agro limped down the stairs that led out of the shrine and stared out into the horizon, its dull light covered by a mantle of clouds. The patterns of the birds’ flight spoke with a new voice; there were meanings to be discerned in the wind blowing through the grass. That limping leg would heal, steady as stone, and carry the weight of old mysteries and the distant woods.


End file.
